BIKE: Permission to use the roadways

[Dan Connelly]

Mike Dahmus wrote:
 > You need permission to have a parade.

What's a parade?

Clearly traffic jams of motor vehicles are not parades.

A parade typically involves multiple vehicles, claiming temporary
exclusive access to the road, otherwise violating vehicle code.
(failing to keep to the right despite substandard speed, failing
to stop at stop signs and signals, failing to yield to pedestrians
at cross-walks, etc).  They therefore require extraordinary privlege,
and therefore, special permission.

Yet parade ordinances have been used in the SF Bay area to
restrict public rides (centuries, etc), despite the fact that
in these events riders are fully expected to follow vehicle code.
No special exceptions are needed or requested.  What makes these
"parades", but if a Stanford football game clogs the roads (fully
anticipated), it is not a parade?   No, the cycling event is not
a parade any more than rush hour is a parade.  The fact that riders
pay the organizers is hardly relevent.

So I'd like to see a legal definition (Black's Law, for example)
of "parade".   I hardly think group rides,  formal or loosely
organized, qualify.  I can't find anything in vehicle codes
of either CA or TX:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&group=00001-01000&file=100-680
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/tr/tr0054100toc.html

Dan